There are a dozen or so really great laughs in Paul Weitz's satire, American Dreamz.
The gaps between those choice bits are not particularly inspired, so the film lurches along where it should have bounced merrily.
There's also the niggling problem that some of Weitz's targets are not as frivolous as the others.
It's one thing to spoof an international phenomenon like American Idol or the incompetence of President Bush, but to throw terrorism into the mix is a bit tricky.
Ironically, it's the proposed assassination of the president that gets some of the best laughs.
American Dreamz zeroes in on two men who should never meet but will.
Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant) is the savvy host of the wildly popular TV talent show, American Dreamz.
President Staton (Dennis Quaid) is the clueless American leader.
Because Staton's approval rating is so low, his chief of staff (Willem Dafoe) books him as a celebrity judge for the final round of the current American Dreamz contest.
Staton will help choose between Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore) and Omer (Sam Golzari).
Sally is a Midwestern cutie with a heart of stone and a gorgon for a mother (Jennifer Coolidge).
Omer is a terrorist obsessed with show tunes.
Grant has Tweed's slimy egotism down pat and Quaid is wonderfully vacuous.
While Grant doesn't really resemble American Idol's notorious judge Simon Cowell, Quaid is a dead ringer for Bush, which makes his performance the eerier of the two.
Dafoe does an impressive Dick Cheney and Marcia Gay Harden is like a Laura Bush wax figurine come to life.
There's no question Weitz got the White House right.
Moore manages to capture the two sides of Sally with surprising ease. She's all sweetness and innocence on the outside, but a true viper at heart.
It's just unfortunate Moore wasn't given more chance to sing.
Poor Coolidge is wasted. She doesn't have a single zinger to play with. It's as if Weitz didn't want her to upstage anyone even for a moment.
Chris Klein is hysterical as Sally's boyfriend, who enlists and serves a day in Iraq to prove his undying love. There's not a hint Klein knows this is a comedy, which is what makes him so funny.
Golzari's introduction --singing show tunes in his desert terrorist training camp -- promises much more than the film ever allows him to deliver.
When Omer gets to America, his Arab cousins are numbingly bland, including the flamboyantly gay Iqbal (Tony Yalda).
The film's climax never achieves the kind of mayhem it should. It unfolds without a sense of panic, even though everyone is running around.
It may be seriously flawed, but American Dreamz is still amusing and pleasantly subversive.
(This film is rated PG)
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